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Catholic Sex-Abuse Crisis Boon for Baptists, Economist Dan Hungerman Shows

Author: Kate Garry

Categories: General News, Research, Catholicism, and Faculty News

Did the Catholic sex-abuse scandal benefit other faiths? New research by economist Dan Hungerman shows it did. The study by Hungerman, Stepan Family Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Notre Dame, shows a 2 million member drop in the Catholic population following the sex-abuse scandal and more than $3 billion in donations to non-Catholic faiths, with Baptist churches showing the most significant gains.

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Symposium to Explore President Ronald Reagan's Legacy

Author: Kate Garry

Categories: General News and Centers and Institutes

Examining the life and legacy of President Ronald Reagan will be the focus of a symposium and panel discussion November 11 from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C. Part of an historic year-long celebration to commemorate President Reagan’s 100th birthday, the event is sponsored by the University of Notre Dame’s Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy and the Ronald Reagan Foundation. It is free and open to the public.

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Shakespeare a “Fakespeare”? Notre Dame Expert Says Idea “Pitifully Silly”

Author: Kate Garry

Categories: General News, Centers and Institutes, Arts, and Faculty News

Is the Bard a fraud? Is someone other than William Shakespeare the true author of the some of the most revered works of English literature, as the upcoming movie _Anonymous_ suggests? “Absolutely not,” according to University of Notre Dame Shakespeare expert Peter Holland, the McMeel Family Chair in Shakespeare Studies and Associate Dean for the Arts.

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What We’ve Learned About Generosity

Author: Kate Garry

Categories: General News, Research, Centers and Institutes, Catholicism, and Faculty News

In 2009 the University of Notre Dame launched the _Science of Generosity_, an initiative funded by a $5 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation, to support and conduct research into the origins, manifestations, and consequences of generosity. Directed by Christian Smith, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology, the initiative has awarded nearly $3 million to 13 research projects conducted by scholars around the world, and it is in the second year of conducting its own research on the causal mechanisms that encourage and inhibit generosity.

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New Book Explores Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood

Author: Kate Garry

Categories: General News, Research, Centers and Institutes, and Faculty News

Young adults today enjoy more freedom, opportunities, and personal growth than any previous generation. But their transition to adulthood also is more complex, disjointed, and confusing than it was for their counterparts a generation ago. In _Lost in Transition_ (Oxford University Press, 2011), University of Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith explores the difficulties today’s young people face, the underlying causes of those difficulties, and the consequences for both individuals and for society in general.

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Theologian Celia Deane-Drummond to Lead Study on Evolution and Human Nature

Author: Kate Garry

Categories: General News, Research, Centers and Institutes, Catholicism, and Faculty News

University of Notre Dame theologian Celia Deane-Drummond has been chosen to lead a research team of theologians and scientists in residence at Princeton University for the 2012-13 academic year, to address questions of nature and nurture raised by the biological evolution of human beings.

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Economist Joseph Kaboski: Poor Financing in Developing Countries Explains Sluggish Growth

Author: Kate Garry

Categories: General News, Research, Internationalism, and Faculty News

Though economists have long suspected that developing countries struggle to emerge from poverty because they lack robust financial sectors, few economists have tried to determine just how this phenomenon occurs—until now. University of Notre Dame Economics Professor Joseph Kaboski, together with colleagues from UCLA and Washington University in St. Louis, examine this phenomenon in the study “Finance and Development: A Tale of Two Sectors,” published recently in the _American Economic Review_.

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Employers Seek Arts and Letters Talent at “What’s Next?” Week

Author: Kate Garry

Categories: General News and Centers and Institutes

“What’s next?” That thought lurks in the back of every undergraduate mind as the years at Notre Dame fly by. To help College of Arts and Letters students explore the many and disparate ways they can answer that question, the Career Center will host its annual “What’s Next?” Week from September 26-29. The event, designed just for students in the College, provides information about internship, career, and service opportunities available both before and after graduation.

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Economist James Sullivan Says Census Poverty Measures Misleading

Author: Kate Garry

Categories: General News, Research, and Faculty News

On Sept. 13, the U.S. Census Bureau will release official poverty estimates for 2010, and those numbers are likely to be higher than last year’s staggering 14.3 percent poverty rate for 2009. However, Census poverty figures are based on a narrow measure of income that often doesn’t accurately reflect an individual's true economic circumstances, according to James Sullivan, associate professor in the University of Notre Dame Department of Economics.

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Anthropologist Agustín Fuentes Explains “Planet of the Apes” Fascination

Author: Kate Garry

Categories: General News and Faculty News

_Rise of the Planet of the Apes_, opening nationwide Friday, is expected to be a summer blockbuster. So what’s the fascination with apes taking over? Why not _Planet of the Dogs_ or _Planet of the Seagulls_? “The lure of the _Planet of the Apes_ movies lies in our fascination with the possibility that we are not the only sentient beings on earth,” says University of Notre Dame anthropologist Agustin Fuentes, who specializes in human evolution and primatology.

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Anthropologist Rahul Oka Shares Insights on Somalia Famine

Author: Kate Garry

Categories: General News, Internationalism, and Faculty News

By flip-flopping its position on which groups can provide humanitarian aid to the thousands of starving Somalians, and forbidding supplies from foreign agencies not currently working in its strongholds, the al-Qaida-linked militant group al-Shabab is “playing an interesting game,” says University of Notre Dame economic anthropologist Rahul Oka, who currently is in Kenya at the Kakuma Refugee Camp conducting fieldwork on trade and the distribution of relief supplies.

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Political Scientist Michael Desch on Solving Israel-Palestine Conflict

Author: Kate Garry

Categories: General News, Centers and Institutes, Internationalism, and Faculty News

The results of a recent Zogby poll confirm the growing anti-American attitude of most of the Arab world, and President Obama’s lack of meaningful action in the Israeli-Palestine conflict can be blamed for a good portion of it, according to Michael Desch, chair of the University of Notre Dame's Department of Political Science and fellow in the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.

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Russian Major Learns Subtleties of Slang in Moscow

Author: Kate Garry

Categories: General News, Undergraduate News, Centers and Institutes, and Internationalism

Morgan Iddings expected some culture shock when she traveled from Notre Dame to Moscow for an intensive Russian language immersion. The first-year Russian student faced an added challenge when she realized her host mother didn’t speak a word of English. “Nevertheless, I ended up having a great experience,” Iddings says.

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Psychologist Darcia Narvaez Comments on Video Game Ruling and Moral Development

Author: Kate Garry

Categories: General News and Faculty News

Monday’s Supreme Court ruling on the sale of violent video games to minors may have been a victory for free speech, but raises an important issue: Do violent video games really harm kids? Absolutely, according to Darcia Narvaez, a University of Notre Dame psychology professor who researches the effect of violent video games on the developing brains of children and teens.

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China Expert Lionel Jensen Comments on Release of Ai Weiwei

Author: Kate Garry

Categories: General News and Internationalism

After being apprehended by the Chinese government and detained for more than two months on charges of tax evasion, Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei has been released. “I suspect that the condition of Ai's diabetes, his resistance to confession, intense and embarrassing international pressure from capitalist and political institutions, as well as an ongoing struggle within the ranks of the Chinese Communist Party itself, all have contributed to this development,” says Lionel Jensen, associate professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Department of History at the University of Notre Dame.

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Notre Dame Student Develops New Outlook in Italy

Author: Kate Garry

Categories: General News, Centers and Institutes, and Internationalism

Raised in a predominantly Spanish-speaking Miami community, Notre Dame senior Carolyn Caballero says she knows that daily interactions with native speakers are the key to truly understanding a new language. “You can’t take four years of Spanish and think you know it,” she says. “You have to experience dialect, questions coming out of left field, and thick accents.”

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Language ‘Clicks’ in Jordan for Arabic Major

Author: Kate Garry

Categories: General News, Centers and Institutes, and Internationalism

Senior Arabic and biology major Ryan Shannon says he learned as much during the University of Notre Dame’s Summer Language Abroad (SLA) program in Jordan as he did during four semesters of Arabic courses on campus. “Before I went to Amman, I had a hard time holding a conversation in Arabic,” Shannon says. “While there, all of a sudden things started making sense and clicking.”

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Research on Christian School Graduates Yields Surprising Results

Author: Kate Garry

Categories: General News, Research, and Faculty News

In the first study of its kind on K-12 Christian education in North America, University of Notre Dame sociologist David Sikkink, in partnership with Cardus—a public policy think tank—found that while Protestant Christian school graduates show uncommon commitment to their families and churches, donate more money than graduates of other schools, and divorce less, they also have lower incomes, less education, and are less engaged in politics than their Catholic and non-religious private school peers.

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